Theme Of Ambition In Macbeth

Ambition is often the driving force in one’s life. It is supposed to be the motivating factor that drives one towards success. Society also deems ambition a necessary quality of their leader. It can be said that Macbeth exhibits this quality of ambition. He is the strong, valiant warrior who has won in battle and brought victory to Scotland. However, Macbeth’s quest to acquire more power-his ambition-ultimately leads to his tragic demise. How can one allow himself to be destroyed by such a thing? Before Duncan’s murder, Macbeth questions and second guesses his ambitious tendencies and actions. Despite his anxiety, he succumbs to these tendencies and finds himself in an increasingly precarious situation, with his back against the wall and growing ever closer to his almost inevitable end.

Macduff is also a character that deals with guilt. He is guilty of leaving his entire family behind in Scotland which is eventually why they are killed. He uses this guilt to drive him to bring Macbeth down. If Macduff would have thought to bring his wife and children they wouldn't have died. This shows that every action has consequences and those consequences must be taken into consideration.

The play Macbeth written by William Shakespeare is based upon old Scotland and this is used as the general time frame. During this time, Monarchy still existed and Scotland is in war with Whales. There are many emotions that arise throughout the play, but the most important of all is ambition. “Ambition is the desire for personal achievement. Ambitious persons seek to be the best at what they choose to do for attainment, power, or superiority” (“Ambition”). The motif of ambition in the play is that being ambitious leaves one blind to certain areas and can drive one insane to reach the intended goal. Numerous characters that showed this trait throughout the play were Banquo, Macduff, Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth.

Many people who have read William Shakespeare’s Macbeth know that Macbeth is the tragic hero in the play, but there another character stands out as a much greater protagonist. Macbeth is the type of character who turned from a loyal warrior to the king into a violent, tyrannical, and conflicted person as he progressively commits crimes inside the kingdom without anyone’s notice, except for one person, who is Macduff. Macduff doesn’t have any flaws and remains sinless and heroic throughout the play. As Macbeth progressively gains power and prestige in exchange for the lives of his king, his friends, and his countrymen, Macduff meanwhile goes through great personal loss in his attempts to stop Macbeth’s tyrannical ruling and to restore justice and freedom to Scotland. It is ironic how Macduff acts so much more nobly than his king. Throughout the tragic events that have occurred in the play, Macduff serves as a heroic figure through his demonstrations of intelligence, loyalty, and righteousness.

We have all made mistakes in our lives, things we cannot reverse. I personally have never made such a bad mistake its life-changing but we see this happen in MacBeth, a play written by William Shakespeare. It has many themes and insinuates several different messages.

The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare recounts Macbeth's meteoric rise as a soldier and promising future leader whose megalomaniacal ambition led to his tragic downfall. In addition to Macbeth's ambitions, which initially enable him to be strong leader and soldier, he is influenced heavily by his wife, Lady Macbeth, and the three witches that prophesize his ascent to the throne, as well as warn him of his eventual demise. It can be argued that it is Macbeth's ambition that allows him to succeed in his endeavors, however the goals to which he is working toward influence the results of his hard work. Macbeth's ambitions help him to become a war hero, and as his goals change, his ambitions drive him to become a tyrannical villain.

Ambition is a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. In Williams Shakespeare 's Macbeth the characters Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have a strong desire to ascend the throne and they are determined to do whatever it takes in order to achieve this goal, including deceiving and killing those they are closest to. The zeal of ambition predominately persuades both characters actions in Macbeth. Lady Macbeth portrays how the forces of ambition strike her to instil a powerful drive in her husband, also how she demonstrates an overweening pride and lack of morals in order to reach a goal and lastly how ambition leads Macbeth to betray those cares about most.

Macbeth is depicted at the start of the play to be a very loyal and a honest man, which changes dramatically due to the fact that Lady Macbeth (LMB) manipulates Macbeth (MB) with all her might to kill King Duncan, because LMB’s passion and selfishness driver her crazy to the equivalence of being a witch. LMB basically wants to be the queen, so that she can most of the power and so people can treat her like a literal queen. Also MB also had that little bit of ambition that was never let out before the murder of King Duncan but ever since he had killed the KIng he had been regretting ever since. Therefore making him seen as a evil person. This traces back to the real world.

This may seem so, because she was the one who urged Macbeth to become king, but her mental depreciation near the end of the play shows us that she did not intend for things to turn out the way they did. Lady Macbeth says, “Wash your hands. Put on your night- / gown. Look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Ban- / quo’s buried; he cannot come out on ‘s grave (5.2.65-67). To give context, this scene is when the Doctor and gentle woman watches Lady Macbeth sleepwalk. While she sleepwalks, she says things that shouldn’t be said and expresses her anxiety this way. It is probable to assume that her mental state is disintegrating, because she had not anticipated for all the events that unfold after Duncan’s death. Even though Macbeth was the one who actually murdered Duncan, we do not see him breaking down, but getting ready to take on a whole army. Lady Macbeth had urged Macbeth to kill Duncan which makes her a factor of her and Macbeth’s experience in the end. However, this whole scene shows that Lady Macbeth only wanted was happiness for her and her husband and did not intend for things to turn out this

Macbeth is a successful and a highly respected member of a social group, loaded with honors and enjoying every prospect of his life in praise. His family is by his side no matter what obstacles he may face, including any peer pressure from his wife. Many people praise Macbeth for his heroic actions in defending his precious kingdom he plans to run. Throughout the play many people like King Duncan think of Macbeth with high regard and treats him generously, but this will all be subjected to change.

In the play “Macbeth” by WIlliam Shakespeare there are different shifts in power throughout the play between Macbeth. Lady Macbeth and Macduff. Shakespeare uses the themes of ambi, confidence and guilt throughout the play to show these shifts in power.

Ambition is one of the themes that are used in the play that are very important to the story. Most of the characters in are shown to have ambition towards something at some point or another throughout Macbeth. One of the characters that shows a lot of ambition throughout the play is the main character, Macbeth. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is shown to have ambition towards becoming king. He does not show as much ambition towards killing Duncan as Lady Macbeth does, but he does towards having power. In act 1 scene 3 Macbeth says "My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man That function is smuther'd in surmise, and nothing is but what is not" (Shakespeare 1.3) which shows just how ambitious he is to kill Duncan at the moment. Another character from Macbeth that shows great ambition is Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth shows ambition, especially towards the beginning of the play, towards killing Duncan. She is so intent on having Duncan murdered that she pushes her husband to kill him. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are not the only ambitious characters in Macbeth, but they are the two main characters with ambition that stand out to me the most.

Ambition, a trait which underlines success, but while unchecked can lead to self or societal corruption. In William Shakespeare’s tragedy, “Macbeth”, a brave general falls into tyranny and paranoia after he acts immorally upon the witches prophecies. Macbeth’s pursuit of long lasting power reveals the consequences of hubris and unchecked ambition, which ultimately leads to the the deterioration of his human nature and the corruption of the kingdom. Through the use of thematic motif, the theme of Macbeth’s unchecked ambition and hubris is examined through his struggle to alter and actuate fate, his haunting hallucinations, and the apparitions.

In the Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth, Shakespeare utilizes a theme of extreme ambition to expose the wrongdoing of traitorous characters, especially using it to depict and emphasize the tyranny of King Macbeth. There are essentially 2 main traitors in Macbeth, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. These two characters essentially antagonize the play due to their justification of their evil-doing for their subsequent good. Early in the play, Macbeth encounters 3 fortune-telling witches.

I am going to discuss and analyse a key theme that i have learned from the novel Macbeth by WIlliam Shakespeare which is that of vaulting ambition. I will also be discussing how this relates to the rise and fall of Macbeth within the book.